Visa requirements for Vanuatu citizens in 2026 (September 2026)

I spent the last few days going through Council regulations, UK immigration rules and four separate passport indices, because the visa requirements for Vanuatu citizens are covered almost entirely by companies selling Vanuatu passports, and their numbers do not match reality. You will still find pages advertising 118 or even 130 visa-free destinations. The real figure is somewhere around 88, the European Union removed Vanuatu from its visa-free list permanently in December 2024, and the United Kingdom did the same in July 2023. If you were born in Vanuatu, you lost access to Europe because of a citizenship programme you had nothing to do with.

The quick answer

A Vanuatu passport currently reaches somewhere around 88 destinations without a visa arranged in advance, placing it roughly 68th to 70th on the 2026 Henley Passport Index. Other indices put it much lower, and I explain that discrepancy further down.

What is not in dispute is what came out. The European Union fully suspended visa-free access on 4 February 2023 and then permanently moved Vanuatu to its visa-required list on 12 December 2024, through Regulation (EU) 2025/11. That covers all 29 Schengen states. The United Kingdom imposed a visa requirement on 19 July 2023. Ireland is also closed. So the three destinations most Vanuatu travellers would want in Europe all now require a full consular application.

What remains is genuinely useful and gets almost no coverage because it is not what passport salespeople are selling. Singapore, Hong Kong, Macao, Malaysia and Russia are visa-free. So is most of Oceania, including the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Nauru, Fiji and the Marshall Islands. So is most of the Caribbean Community. Thailand, Indonesia and Cambodia issue visas on arrival. Several non-Schengen European countries, including Serbia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and North Macedonia, remain open.

The United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan and South Korea all require a visa or an electronic authorisation arranged before travel.

What the entry categories actually mean

Four categories, and with this passport the difference between them has become unusually consequential.

Visa requirements for Vanuatu citizens, destination by destination

Grouped by what you have to do rather than by region. Vanuatu's access has changed three times in five years, so confirm with the relevant mission before booking anything.

Look at the green rows together and a pattern appears that the rankings obscure. This passport is still strong for Pacific and Southeast Asian mobility, and it retains something most passports at its rank do not, which is visa-free access to Singapore and Hong Kong. What it has lost is specifically the wealthy West.

What happened with the EU and the UK

Worth setting out properly, because the reason matters for whether it might reverse.

Vanuatu has run a citizenship-by-investment programme since the mid 2010s, offering a passport for a non-refundable contribution starting around $130,000 with no residency requirement, no interview and processing in roughly one to two months. It became the fastest and cheapest such programme in the world and processed thousands of applicants a year, mostly from Asia and the Middle East.

The European Commission published findings identifying deficiencies in the programme's due diligence, specifically around background checks and beneficial ownership disclosure, and the speed and breadth of the scheme. A partial suspension followed in March 2022. When negotiations failed to resolve the concerns, the European Council said Vanuatu had failed to engage in any meaningful way and moved to a full suspension effective 4 February 2023. On 12 December 2024 the Council adopted Regulation (EU) 2025/11, permanently transferring Vanuatu to the visa-required annex.

This was the first time the EU has fully and permanently revoked a visa waiver because of an investor citizenship scheme. That precedent is the important part. The UK's decision, effective 19 July 2023, followed the same logic on the same subject.

What is still open, and it is more than you think

Almost nothing written about this passport spends time here, because the audience for most of it is people deciding whether to buy one rather than people who already hold one.

Singapore and Hong Kong visa-free is a genuinely valuable pair. Both are among the world's biggest aviation hubs, so they function as gateways as well as destinations, and visa-free access means no pre-departure decision that can go wrong. Macao and Malaysia complete a workable Asian core.

Pacific mobility is close to complete. The Solomon Islands, Samoa, Nauru, Fiji and the Marshall Islands are all reachable on the passport alone, which matters more for family, regional business and study than any European access ever did for most ni-Vanuatu.

The Caribbean Community connection is unusual and useful. Most CARICOM states admit Vanuatu passport holders visa-free, which is a long way to travel but real access if you have reason to go.

And non-Schengen Europe has not closed. Serbia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and North Macedonia remain visa-free, reported at 90 days each, as does Russia. Those are genuine European destinations even if they are not the ones people had in mind. On Russia specifically, weigh the sanctions and geopolitical situation before booking rather than treating it as an ordinary trip.

Australia, New Zealand and the rest

For most Vanuatu citizens the destinations that matter are Australia and New Zealand, not Paris.

Both require authorisation in advance, Australia through the eVisitor or a visitor visa and New Zealand through the NZeTA plus an appropriate visa. These are online systems rather than embassy appointments, which makes them considerably less painful than a Schengen application, but they are decided before you fly and they can be refused. Apply before buying a non-refundable ticket.

Both countries also operate seasonal work schemes that are a far more significant part of Vanuatu's actual mobility than tourist visas are, and those run under separate arrangements with their own employer requirements. If your travel is for work under one of those schemes, the scheme's own process governs and general visa guidance including this article will not tell you what you need.

Canada requires an eTA or a visa. The United States requires a B-1 or B-2 visa, and one useful detail is that Vanuatu nationals are commonly issued these with multi-year validity, so the cost and effort are front-loaded rather than repeated per trip. Vanuatu is also not among the fifty countries subject to the American visitor visa bond programme, which requires a refundable deposit of up to $20,000 from nationals of listed countries.

Why the numbers you read are wrong

Here is the thing I would most want a Vanuatu passport holder to understand, because it explains why every source you check disagrees.

Four different figures are in circulation and they come from three different causes. Henley's 2026 index puts Vanuatu at roughly 68th to 70th with around 88 destinations, counting visa-free, visa on arrival and electronic authorisations across 227 destinations. A second index puts it at 110th to 112th with 44 to 46 destinations, because it counts only strict visa-free access. A third figure of around 91 to 96 appears depending on how arrival visas are counted. And then there is 118 or 130, which is simply pre-2022 marketing that nobody has updated.

The first three are methodology. The fourth is not, and it is worth being blunt about why it persists. The pages carrying it are mostly published by firms selling Vanuatu citizenship, and a passport that reaches 130 destinations including Europe is a more sellable product than one that reaches 88 and excludes it. One honest assessment I found put it plainly, describing marketing that claims 118 to 130 destinations and EU access as outdated and misleading.

What to do about it. Take Henley's figure as the headline because its methodology is published and consistent, but never plan a specific trip from an index. Check the individual destination's own rules, on the destination government's site, on the day you plan. For a passport whose access has changed three times in five years, that is not excessive caution, it is the only reliable method.

How to actually apply

• Check the destination's own government site rather than a list. This passport's access has moved three times since 2022 and aggregator sites lag badly. Ten minutes on the official page beats any article.
• Confirm your passport has six months of validity and blank pages. Most destinations require at least six months beyond your intended departure, and this is the cheapest problem to catch early.
• Apply for online authorisations before buying tickets. Australia's eVisitor, New Zealand's NZeTA and Canada's eTA are quick but refusable, and the airline will not board you without one.
• Treat Schengen and UK applications as financial risk, not formality. Both fees are non-refundable, both decisions rest on documentation, and both are now full consular applications rather than the light-touch entry Vanuatu holders had before 2023.
• Get the multi-year US visa if you have any reason to travel there. The effort is the same for a single trip and the validity is commonly measured in years, so it is one of the few applications where the cost genuinely amortises.
• Build a travel record in the region first. Pacific and Southeast Asian travel is visa-free or on arrival, costs little, and produces exactly the entry and exit stamps a European or British consulate will look for later.
• If you are travelling for seasonal work, follow the scheme rather than this guide. The Australian and New Zealand labour mobility arrangements have their own employer-led processes, and general tourist guidance does not apply to them.

Questions Vanuatu travellers ask

Final verdict

Having read all of it, the visa requirements for Vanuatu citizens tell a story about someone else's decisions. A passport that reached more than 130 destinations in 2019 now reaches around 88, and the two withdrawals that caused it were both responses to a citizenship-by-investment programme rather than to anything about Vanuatu's own citizens or their travel behaviour. The EU's action in December 2024 was the first permanent revocation of a visa waiver over golden passports anywhere, which makes Vanuatu the precedent other programmes are now measured against.

So the recommendation is to stop reading about what this passport used to do and work with what it does. The Pacific and Southeast Asian access is real, unrestricted and cheap to use, and Singapore and Hong Kong visa-free is better than most passports at this ranking manage. Australia and New Zealand run online systems that are demanding but tractable. Europe and the UK now require full applications, so treat them as projects with lead times and non-refundable costs rather than as places you can decide to visit next month.

One thing before you plan anything. Check the destination government's own page on the day you book, not an index and not a list article. This passport's access has changed three times in five years, aggregator sites are still publishing 2021 figures, and the pages ranking highest for these searches are largely written by firms with a commercial interest in the numbers looking better than they are. For this particular passport, primary sources are not a nice habit. They are the only thing that works.

Sources: Vanuatu Department of Immigration and Passport Services on the EU suspension · Schengen requirements and the December 2024 Council decision · Ancova on Regulation (EU) 2025/11 and the UK date · Soland on the drop from 130 destinations and on misleading marketing · Golden Harbors on the 2026 ranking and destination categories · GLMB on the scope of the suspension and what was unaffected · ETIAS.com on the first full revocation of its kind · Global Citizen Solutions for the alternative index figures. Entry rules for Vanuatu passport holders have changed three times since 2022 and published destination counts vary widely by methodology and by commercial interest, so confirm requirements on the destination government's own website before booking travel.